Pakistan's minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti assassinated

[Spring Onion]

Solomon2, my advice to you is not to flame and stop ranting please. Pakistan has lost a great and brave minister today. I know your having fun by flaming but no need to add salt to injury.
It is because of America that Pakistan has to deal with this mess.

press the report button dont bother much

 

[Solomon2]

Hypothetical questions which keep changing with situation specially when your region is going through a terror wave and war brought upon outsiders as well as much as insiders.

Why "hypothetical"? Don't these questions matter more now than ever?

btw nice questions the American people should ask these -

This is another example of "running away".

 

[Dance]

Profile: Shahbaz Bhatti​

Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated on Wednesday during an attack on his vehicle in Islamabad.

Shahbaz Bhatti, son of Jacob Bhatti was born on September 9,1968 in Lahore, Punjab.

Bhatti was the first Christian parliamentarian who was offered and took oath as Federal Minister of Minorities Affairs in Pakistan. His predecessors had been offered only a state minister position

Bhatti was one of the founding members of the organisation ‘All Pakistan Minorities Alliance’ (APMA) in 1985 and was considered a representative of the religious minorities in Pakistan.

Bhatti joined Pakistani People’s Party (PPP) in 2002. As a political leader, he had continuously asked minority groups to fight for their rights through the system instead of using violence. He was considered great admirer of Pakistan’s founder Jinnah and a true patriot.


As federal minister, Bhatti took serious steps to ensure the safety, rights and empower religious minorities while in office:

• In 2002, he banned the sale of properties belonging to minorities while law enforcement authorities took action against them
• Supported the revisions of the Blasphemy Law by the end of 2010
• Supported repeal for discriminatory laws that affected minority groups
• Launched national campaign to promote interfaith and harmony through seminars, awareness groups, and workshop.
• Had planned to introduce legislation that would ban hate speech and hate literature
• Proposed to the Ministry of Education to introduce comparative religion courses as a curriculum subject
• A five per cent quota was given for all government jobs to minorities
• Four reserved senate seats
• Religious holidays and festivals are recognized by the government and respected.
• Made August 11th Minority Day in Pakistan
• Prayer room for non-Muslims in the prison system
• A 24-hour crisis hotline to report acts of violence against minorities
• A campaign to protect religious artifacts and sites that belong to minorities

Profile: Shahbaz Bhatti | | DAWN.COM

 

[Solomon2]

It is because of America that Pakistan has to deal with this mess.

Some Egyptians blamed America for the Mubarak tyranny. But that didn't stop first one or two, then a dozen, then hundreds, then millions of Egyptians from working together to kick him out of office.

 

[Spring Onion]

Oh btw for information of all those who are ranting about his security , He was given two mobile security cars of FC and Islamabad police, but he used to visits his mother's house without those guards.

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

Some Egyptians blamed America for the Mubarak tyranny. But that didn't stop first one or two, then a dozen, then hundreds, then millions of Egyptians from working together to kick him out of office.

Dude! It's the easy way out. Isn't it?

 

[Shehzad_Fazal]

who will be the next one???...Sherry Rehman???....She has voiced her opinion over abuse of blasphemy law by extremists earlier.....and what about her security??

 

[Spring Onion]

]

Some Egyptians blamed America for the Mubarak tyranny. But that didn't stop first one or two, then a dozen, then hundreds, then millions of Egyptians from working together to kick him out of office.

And its also a conspiracy theory that US was backing that tyrant for 30 odd years so much so for your love of democracy

 

[Dance]

We do not deserve Shahbaz Bhatti​

Minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti has been brutally gunned down today – joining the list of many to have been killed.Voices of sanity do not do well here in Pakistan.

Just when you start thinking things will be okay, that now the maniacs have safely put away Aasia Bibi and they’ve killed Salmaan Taseer so maybe that’s enough to make their point – you are jolted into the reality that is Pakistan. You understand completely and fully, even if you did not that morning when reading the opinions page of The Express Tribune, why George Fulton is leaving.

Today’s breaking news has brought a new understanding to the line I was editing in the article yesterday:

“You do not chart your own destiny in Pakistan; Pakistan charts it for you. It’s emigration by a thousand news stories.”

Shahbaz Bhatti’s assassination has become another one of those ‘stories’. And we can do nothing about it. If a governor and a minister aren’t safe in this country, who is?

Of course there is the broader question of why the minister was killed. This is no random killing and is unlikely to be inspired by personal enmity. Bhatti was killed for what and whom he stood for.

There is a certain futility, hopelessness to it all. When our own are killed simply for asking for justice and fairness and change, how can we actually bring about that change? How can we ensure that our minorities are treated equally and kept safe, when all those championing for them are gunned down? And in response we are silent.

Salmaan Taseer was killed and we decided to abandon his cause. Can we ensure that the next leader who dares to raise his voice will not be the next target?

So where do we go from here? Or is this it?

Maybe this intolerance and fear is inherent. Maybe Pakistan was made not so much because some Muslims felt Hindus in India would not treat them equally, but rather because they knew of their inherent intolerance, that they would not be able to live with an other.

So please, Sherry Rehman, leave the country. We do not deserve sanity.

We do not deserve Shahbaz Bhatti – The Express Tribune Blog

 

[Pak_Sher]

The US has a history of supporting dictators and non-democratic forces around the globe.

 

[JonAsad]

Very sad news- Totally to be blamed on Pakistan Security agencies- they are completely useless-

 

[Dance]

Death of a state​

Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti has been executed in Islamabad, by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Punjab chapter, as claimed in a pamphlet recovered from the site of the murder. He and the Christian community had been receiving threats for some time, after the conviction at a sessions court of an illiterate Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, for blasphemy. In Pakistan’s rapidly growing religious extremism, this is the second death which will probably shake the world, while Pakistani Muslims remain inured to the treatment received from the Taliban. The nation and the media are divided over a similar execution of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer over the controversial blasphemy law, which allows innocent people to be given death sentences.
Bhatti had predicted his death. He had earlier voiced his fear that he would be “the highest target”, following the assassination of Salmaan Taseer. He had also said that fatwas had been issued by extremist clerics calling for his beheading. The public spread of these messages of violence has continued to enjoy impunity. Now the world will mourn the death of another lonely Christian in a country where hardly anyone listens to the woes of his community and where the Punjab government has simply brushed under the carpet repeated incidents of violence against those accused of blasphemy.

The Pakistani media has not paid much attention to this hapless community that opted to stay in Pakistan after 1947 because it had confidence in the leadership of Quaid-i-Azam and openly supported him. This was also the community that later served Pakistan well in the army and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslims in the war against India, winning bravery awards. This is also the community that served Pakistan selflessly in the sectors of education and health, educating even the leaders who grew up to ignore their plight in Punjab, where they are concentrated. When the Pope at the Vatican protested the conviction of Aasia Bibi, the Urdu press thought it wise to publicise the wrath of the narrow-minded cleric against him. Consequently, the world outside thinks Pakistan is drowning in its own extremism.

While the nation is in a fever from the threat it feels from the person of Raymond Davis, it is forgetting that the Taliban have a larger share in killing its sons and daughters. Even as Minister Bhatti was executed near his house, the other Taliban in Mardan attacked a girls’ school and opened fire on innocent pupils who the state is no longer able to protect. No thought is being spared for the most vulnerable sections of our society as powerful clerics appear on TV channels to threaten more violence.

Columnists don’t tire of playing down the blood-thirstiness of the religious terrorists as they invoke scenes of destruction allegedly wreaked by America through its agents. So incensed was Taliban chief Hakimullah at the allegation that he was working for the CIA that he allowed himself to be included in the snap showing the execution of ex-ISI officer Colonel Imam, just as he had had his picture taken together with a Jordanian who had helped kill a number of CIA agents in Afghanistan.

This is the death of the state through extremism. Nothing that Pakistan says is deemed reliable by the outside world. The economy is dying because its external links are snapped by the fear inspired by Pakistani thinking. Pakistanis say the country’s courts are independent and free but no one believes it to be true as terrorists are let off by judges, the latter not being protected by the state against threats of assassination. Its leaders are killed by assassins known to their victims — as in the case of Benazir Bhutto — but columnists insist that she was assassinated by America. It is quite possible that in the coming days, a protesting world would be told that Shahbaz Bhatti was executed by a group of assassins organised by Raymond Davis under orders from Washington!

Lawyers who have showered flower petals on the assassin of Taseer should take pause and look at the extremism of the death of Bhatti, a citizen of Pakistan whose only fault was that he was representing his community and protesting against its targeting under the blasphemy law.

Death of a state – The Express Tribune

 

[Mujeeb47]

Federal minister was without security. This is another lapse of security.

 

[Spring Onion]

Federal minister was without security. This is another lapse of security.

He was given two mobile security cars of FC and Islamabad police, but he used to visits his mother's house without those guards.

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

He was given two mobile security cars of FC and Islamabad police, but he used to visits his mother's house without those guards.

Was he without security today too?